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Apparently unaware that Friday isn’t the day to announce things you want actually covered, the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec announced on Friday the nominees for its seven annual Judith Jasmin awards.

The awards, considered the most prestigious in Quebec journalism, will be handed out at the FPJQ’s annual conference in St. Sauveur on Nov. 17.

Radio-Canada dominates the nominations, with nine overall and at least one in every category except opinion. Five of the nominations are reports done for Enquête, the rest for regular Téléjournal newscasts. La Presse and L’actualité also have multiple nominations with three each. Other nominees are Le Devoir, Le Droit, Jobboom, MSN.ca, La Voix de l’Est and The Gazette, all with one each.

Quebecor media outlets are notable in their absence (except for Jobboom), either because they never submitted stories or because what was submitted wasn’t nominated.

The nominees are below, along with links to the reports where they are available online so you can read or watch them yourself.

When the FPJQ first decided to consider this idea in the fall, I wrote a blog post panning the idea. I picked apart the argument for creating a professional journalist status, as well as the supposed perks having such a status would give people. I also criticized the examples given of France and Belgium, where such statuses exist but whose media environments aren’t nearly the same as ours.

My primary concern wasn’t so much that journalists were getting more rights, but that these rights would be given only to those people deemed worthy of them.

Journalism has existed as we know it for decades without needing any type of formal accreditation system. So, I asked, why should we establish one now? What problem is it solving?

Still, because a big study on the issue hadn’t been released, I held off on a final judgment. Maybe it would convince me that I’d been wrong, that the perceived disadvantages of such an accreditation system would be vastly outweighed by the positives.

Is this necessary?

It’s very clear from the material being shared with members that the FPJQ wants people to vote yes. There’s no effort at balance in the arguments here. No space given to the possible downsides of separating “professional” journalists from non-professional ones.

The Payette report into the state of journalism is also heavily biased in favour of this system.

Payette’s argument is that convergence (read: Quebecor) and the ease with which people can share information have had a detrimental effect on journalism, and establishing a professional title (though not necessarily an order like we have for doctors or lawyers) would somehow help fix this problem.

No source is provided for this statement, nor is it made clear who is doing the observing here. Yes, many newsrooms are smaller than they once were. But we also have many more newsrooms than we used to have, and lots of people are using different forms of media to get their message across. Is there really less original news of a public interest being produced? Has someone studied this to see if it’s actually the case?

Payette’s report notes that “l’information d’intérêt public est fragilisée par le développement de médias spécialisés ou de « niche »”, as if the creation of more specialized news sources is somehow a bad thing. I would argue the opposite, that instead of general-interest journalists learning the basics of an issue and giving a simplistic (and potentially wrong) explanation of it to the public, we now have experts in various fields willing to give in-depth analysis of issues.

Whether those experts are “journalists” is a good question.

The Internet and changing consumption habits have radically changed journalism. In some cases for the better, in some cases for the worse. That’s change, and we have to change with it.

But despite all the fretting about how journalists are being laid off and media empires are no longer what they once were, there’s little justification in the material I’ve read for the establishment of a massive bureaucracy that won’t actually regulate much.

Recommendations hard to swallow

Where Payette’s report gets really scary is in some of its recommendations. As I said in the previous post, some of the ideas for benefits of the professional journalist status sound good but should be applied to everyone.

The protection of sources, for example, should apply to anyone whose protection of a source is for a journalistic reason, not just someone who has a card saying they’re a journalist.

Preferential treatment for access to information requests would make a lot of journalists happy, but would hurt those who don’t have journalist status and want to get information. In many cases, non-journalists making access to information requests want to get data on themselves or a family member, and their needs are much more important to them than a journalist’s curiosity. And, of course, there are cases that gum up the system that come from journalists themselves. Quebecor’s massive access dump on the CBC, for instance, would now be given preferential treatment and make the problem even worse. (Thankfully, a suggestion that journalists’ A-to-I requests all be free of charge has been dropped.)

Then there are the recommendations that are just crazy:

Allowing journalists to leave work and take full paid leave of up to a year because they don’t believe their working conditions allow them to be fully ethical is just asking for years of litigation.

Restricting government advertising to Quebec Press Council members would create all sorts of problems. Could governments no longer advertise on billboards or on Métrovision or on specialty channels because they aren’t run by people who employ journalists?

Changing the law to prevent anyone who has been libelled from seeking any damages from media who follow standard policies about corrections gives those media less of an incentive to stop libelling people. I’m not suggesting that people should be able to sue for millions because of what’s written in the paper about them, but people who are wronged by the media (for example, being accused of a crime when they haven’t even been charged) deserve compensation.

Setting up a 1-800 number for the Quebec Press Council so people can get ethics advice sounds like a really stupid idea and a giant waste of money.

Requiring all professional journalists to pass a French language test and get regular French language training not only ignores the fact that that not all journalism in Quebec is done in French, but it also sounds like its goal is more about politics than it is about journalism. (The Suburban clearly wasn’t happy with this suggestion.) The report makes a case that language skills are vital to proper communication (though I don’t think too many people are failing to be informed because of journalists’ quality of French), but there are no similar recommendations for other skills journalists should have, like math, basic science or history.

The FPJQ’s vote isn’t necessarily to accept all the recommendations of the report, but this entire project is based on that report, and the association hasn’t rejected any of the ideas above.

The Payette report isn’t all bad. There are some decent recommendations here:

Allow freelance journalists to negotiate on a level playing field and ensure their contracts have a minimum standard

Allow journalists to represent themselves at access to information hearings, as non-journalists are allowed to do

Increase support for small regional independent media (through government handouts or other measures)

Having the government follow an open data policy and put raw data online as much as possible

Forcing municipalities to publish publicly-accessible documents online and provide adequate public notice of council meetings and their agendas

But none of these in any way require the establishment of a title of professional journalist.

That’s a big question. The reports and recommendations kind of skip over the most important question of why this is even necessary, preferring to spend most of their time discussing how it would work (and even then, many of the not-unimportant details are left until later).

Conflict of interest

The FPJQ is obviously in favour of this project, because it would give a legal status to the federation. It says people wouldn’t have to be members of the FPJQ to get official journalist status, but only members could elect FPJQ executives who decide who sits on the council that decides who can become a journalist.

The Quebec Press Council, a separate body whose membership is voluntary and whose powers are practically non-existent, also embraces Payette’s report. That might have something to do with the six-figure government handouts she wants the council to receive.

Judging from the fact that a preliminary proposal was approved unanimously at the FPJQ’s annual meeting, it’s likely this vote will also pass with a huge margin. Only FPJQ members are allowed to vote (and I’m not one of them), even though the decision – if it moves the government to action – would affect every journalist working in Quebec.

Then again, as far as this blog is concerned, whether I’m really a journalist could be up for debate soon.

Last weekend, the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec held its annual meeting and journalism conference in Montreal, and part of that is handing out its annual awards for the best in Quebec journalism.

As usual, media reports about these awards are heavily based on whether those news outlets won any of those awards, as you can see from these gloating pieces:

Chantal Guy happened to be in Haiti on Jan. 12, writing a story about author Dany Lafferière, when the earthquake struck. Despite being unprepared to cover a disaster zone, she turned into a news reporter and filed this story. Others followed after it over the next few days, until a team of journalists arrived from Montreal. You can read about her experience in this article, and find other stories about Haiti on La Presse’s Haiti page.

Prix Antoine Désilets

The photography winners are always harder to track down, mostly because they’re poorly described and can’t be searched as easily as a headline on Google.

The winners are listed here, along with why they were chosen. All the finalists will be on display during expositions across Quebec, including one at the Maison de la culture Ahuntsic from Jan. 20 to Feb. 26.

Multimédia

Other prizes and honours

The Bourse Arthur-Prévost, designed to encourage young journalists, went to Gabrielle Duchaine of Rue Frontenac, the second time in as many years that the bursary has gone to a journalist from the publication of locked-out workers of the Journal de Montréal. (Duchaine was also Rue Frontenac’s only nomination for a Judith Jasmin award, though there were two Antoine Désilets nominations for photographers. Though they didn’t win any of those awards, they can at least take comfort in the fact that the Journal de Montréal wasn’t nominated for anything.) Nancy Beaulieu, a journalist at La Voix de l’Est, got an honourable mention.

At its general assembly on Nov. 28, the Fédération profesionnelle des journalistes du Québec will be debating a series of motions recommended by the organization’s executive committee. Among them is a demand for a parliamentary commission into the Journal de Montréal lockout, an update to its ethics guidelines to reflect the development of social media (a subject I’ve been invited to speak about at a panel discussion the day before), and a bill of rights for freelancers.

These things sound pretty good (though the wording of the demand for a parliamentary commission sounds like its goal is to get the government to publicly embarrass Quebecor and come down against the creation of the QMI Agency news service).

There’s also a motion to expand the definition of “Quebec”, as silly as that sounds, to include those media organizations that “étant établie au Canada, entretient avec le Québec des liens historiques et culturels“, which sounds a lot like they’ll accept francophone journalists from just about anywhere in Canada. I’m not necessarily against this, but it opens up a can of worms (will the FPJQ now have to deal with the Ontario and New Brunswick governments?) and reinforces the idea that there’s a French mediasphere and an English one, and the FPJQ is on the French side.

But the motion that really bothers me is a proposal to setup a certification system for journalists.

Projet J has uploaded two videos shot at the conference of the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec held last month. The first video (above) asks the members present about the future of journalism, and has brief interviews with culture minister Christine St-Pierre and Dominique Payette, who will be doing a study into the status of media in Quebec.

Quebec culture minister Christine St-Pierre announced at the FPJQ conference that she has ordered a study be done on the future of media in Quebec. Dominique Payette, a professor at Université Laval and former journalist for Radio-Canada, has been put in charge of this study.

The scope seems to be pretty large, and could touch on everything from whether newspapers should be subsidized to whether the government should fund a news department at Télé-Québec. (My knee-jerk reaction to both would be “no”.)

Although the situation in Quebec media is different from the rest of the world (some would say we’re behind the times, which is a plus for newspapers and television networks), I don’t know if it’s so different that a study like this will bring any new insight into this debate that has already been over-analyzed by self-proclaimed experts all over the world.

For the three other administrator posts, Isabelle Richer (Radio-Canada) and André Noël (La Presse) both won (because Myles ran for president, they only ran two candidates), along with Florent Daudens (Radio-Canada). Defeated were Yann Pineau (La Presse), Lise Millette (Presse Canadienne) and Maurice Giroux (Point Sud).

The post for freelancer was acclaimed, Nicolas Langelier being the only candidate.

These people will join vice-president Richard Bousquet (Rue Frontenac) and secretary-treasurer Philippe Schnobb (Radio-Canada) on the board. If we look at it from a straight party perspective, the unionists have two of five seats on the board and the presidency. Hardly a majority, but will this send a bad message to managers and media bosses in Quebec that the FPJQ is moving toward taking sides (even if they say the point is not to do so)?

Once again, journalists gathered together this weekend to pat each other on the back, handing out awards to honour the best of Quebec journalism over the past year.

And, as usual, La Presse and Radio-Canada were the big winners, and aren’t shy about showing it: La Presse, Radio-Canada. But Gesca’s Le Soleil and La Voix de l’Est also picked up awards, as did the Journal de St. François and H magazine. (Le Devoir also covered the awards even though it didn’t win any.)

Since, like previous journalism awards announcements, nobody has thought to link news of the winners to the stories and photos they won for (Radio-Canada comes closest, linking only to its own reports), I’ve done so here for those I can find:

It’s not that I think Martin Bisaillon shouldn’t be judged based on his views, or that I agree with them, but this campaign got really dirty really fast, to the point of (anonymously) drudging up the angry Facebook updates of a guy who’s been locked out of his job for almost a year, as if it’s some sort of scandal that he’s on the wrong side of this legitimate debate.

Either way, it’ll be over this weekend, and these journalists can go back to shaking their heads at politicians who pull these kinds of things during campaigns.

UPDATE: Like, as soon as I publish this, I read (on that same blog) that Bisaillon has pulled out of the FPJQ leadership race, citing these attacks as the main reason. Brian Myles of Le Devoir, who was running with Bisaillon, will throw his hat in for the president’s job against Cardinal.

Next weekend, the Fédération professionnelle des journalistes du Québec is holding its annual conference in Sherbrooke. Most journalists will be there for the seminars and workshops and other opportunities for training and networking that such a conference can provide. But these incentives are also a way for the FPJQ to get its members to show up to its annual meeting on Sunday to take care of the internal bureaucratic stuff, like electing a board of directors.

On one side if Martin Bisaillon, a locked-out journalist with RueFrontenac.com, who would become the first FPJQ president locked out from his job as a journalist. He’s running on an unofficial slate that includes Brian Myles of Le Devoir, Isabelle Richer of Radio-Canada, André Noël of La Presse and Michel Corbeil of Le Soleil.

One issue

Bisaillon admits that his candidacy stems from a decision made by Bourque to criticize a proposed boycott by members of the National Assembly against journalists for the locked-out Journal de Montréal. Bourque said it would set a bad precedent for MNAs to dictate which journalists they would talk to and which they wouldn’t, and that such a boycott would go against the principles of freedom of the press that the FPJQ defends.

Bisaillon, who as a member of the locked-out Journal de Montréal staff has a clear vested interest in this debate, was harshly critical of that statement, which he interpreted as the FPJQ taking a stand against the union:

What does neutral mean?

Both candidates say they want the FPJQ to be neutral in labour conflicts, but their interpretations of neutrality clearly differ. Bisaillon, a militant union man, thinks the association should sit quietly when the interests of unions and the interests of journalists are at odds (he does, however, think they should speak out against convergence, outsourcing and other issues that affect unions negatively). Cardinal apparently believes the association should ignore whether unions are at issue and focus on journalism and journalists first. (UPDATE: Cardinal clarifies his position via Twitter: “FPJQ doit s’impliquer lorsque la liberté de presse est menacée et que les journalistes ne peuvent plus travailler dans des conditions adéquates”)

The debate here is whether the FPJQ should support the interests of journalism or the interests of its members (most of whom are unionized). The answer isn’t obvious.

One insider emailed me this week to express concern about Bisaillon’s candidacy, worrying that union members would vote en masse for him and the association would be an extension of the unions, especially powerful ones like the Syndicat des travailleurs de l’information du Journal de Montréal.

On the federal level, the FPJQ’s best equivalent is the Canadian Association of Journalists, which frequently takes public stands on issues affecting media. In some cases, such as condemning job cuts at CTV and CBC, those could be seen as pro-union, but other issues it has stayed silent on, including the lockout at the Journal de Montréal.

There’s an instinctual force sometimes among unionized journalists (such as myself) to think that every union issue is also an issue of freedom of the press, that any dispute between employer and employee is a dispute between the good journalist trying to do a professional job and an evil media empire bent on cutting corners in order to make a quick buck.

Whether journalists actually agree with that stance, well, we’ll find out on Sunday.

Hey guys, I have an idea. We should commission a survey of Quebecers and ask them about how they feel local news has eroded over the past few years. Then we’ll release it and maybe convince some companies to stop gutting local journalism.

Naturally, management at the media outlets disagreed. Even the Journal de Montréal’s George Kalogerakis says with a straight face that they don’t sensationalize or exaggerate the news (full-disclosure trivia: He hired me for my first job at The Gazette, then promptly left the city editor position for a big-money offer at the Journal)

Patrick Lagacé, for his part, blames us, the readers. He says that with the Internet giving us access to so many points of view, we have no excuse not to be well informed about the news.

I think all three parties are at fault:

Journalists are increasingly lazy. The Internet brings all the information to you. You can rip off blogs, rewrite press releases, write about what you see on TV, or just rewrite what a politician tells you on the phone. Investigative journalism is the first casualty of a journalist’s busy schedule, and so local news tends to the tired old no-effort categories: he-said-she-said political battles, rewrite-what-the-police-PR-guy-told-me crime reporting, traffic accidents (also courtesy of the police PR guy), 100-year-old grandmas who want to see their photos in print, and of course the weather.

Managers are concerned not with promoting news stories that will change the world, but by making front pages that will get picked up at the newstand, or leading newscasts with ratings-rich attention grabbers. They’re editors but they’re also money people, and they know what people will pay for. Which brings us to:

Readers and viewers say they want more investigative journalism and hard news, but when nobody’s looking they’ll pay more attention to that Paris Hilton story than the 3,000-word feature on Sudan. Crap works because you buy it. You can’t turn around and blame these people for giving you what you want.

So how is this going to change? The Internet is one big step in the right direction, if only because it encourages the growth of niche communications. Major local media try to be all things to all people, and that worked in the past because there was no alternative. But now people with specific interests are finding others with similar interests, and those publishers who dare to be different are thriving.

The flip side to that is that when you get all your news from these niche sources, you lose the overall picture. Those world news stories you only pretend to care about go from I-just-scanned-the-headline to I-had-no-idea-that-happened. You end up knowing the most minute detail about the latest Battlestar Galactica episode but absolutely nothing about the political situation in Pakistan.

Time will tell us whether this new information access will increase or decrease our overall exposure to news.

What was particularly annoying about the announcement of the winners is that neither the FPJQ announcements nor any of the news reports about them contained links to the winners’ articles, video reports or photos. This is 2007, for crying out loud. It should be beyond obvious by now that online reports are incomplete without us being able to see what they’re talking about.

So as a public service, here are the winners of the FPJQ’s awards this weekend, with links to the original pieces where appropriate.

The article that started it all. A reporter talks about a small town called Hérouxville which has some odd ideas about race relations (they polled residents asking “are you racist?”, the answer was 100% “no”). The rest is history.

This spectacular photo of F1 driver Robert Kubica having his vehicle totalled (I think, there were a few photos that got picked up) made the AFP and Canadian Press wires and got published around the world.

(I’m assuming it’s this photo – it’s part of a gallery with the rest.) A photo of mafia boss Nick Rizzutto being arrested, honoured for its excellent composition of elements denoting the once great man’s being taken down by the law.

Prix Judith-Jasmin hommage (lifetime achievement)

This career award went to former Journal de Montréal justice reporter Rodolphe Morissette, who retired last year after 22 years of service.

Bourse Arthur-Prévost (aspiring rookie journalist)

This $2,000 financial award went to Marie-Hélène Proulx, who’s currently at Jobboom Magazine but has had her name just about everywhere since starting a freelance journalism career in 2003. Her magazine articles have already won grownup awards.